The Trip to Grandma's in which Toby Learned to Bite Flowers Instead of Children

I survived.  Three nights, 2 days (I went down for one of the days…), 10 meals, 6 poopie diapers and one new tooth.   After an amazing few days at Grandma and Grandpa’s my boy is finally back home with me. 

 

Toby did REALLY well.  He only ate the dog’s kibble a few times and even made a friend at the local park where he went every day.  This is big stuff for Toby.  The last time we left him with my parents he bit a kid at the park. (A different park.  One we don’t take him to anymore…)  So to actually make a FRIEND as a 15 month old-biter is a big accomplishment.

 

The other thing Grandma taught him was not to rip the heads off the flowers.  I give him credit for appreciating the beauty of flowers- - I mean, what horticultural kid WOULDN’T want to rip the heads off the pretty flowers?  So I was quite surprised to see that my mother’s efforts paid off and Toby has learned, quite cutely, to admire the flowers by squatting down and “smelling” them, instead of ripping them apart with his little fists.

 

The first time I saw him do this I didn’t actually understand WHAT he was doing. But by the second and third time I caught on and was quite impressed.  But the FOURTH time I realized something was up….I KNEW my kid wasn’t the “I’ll just SMELL these pretty flowers” type…..he had me for a while but gradually I noticed that as he “smelled” the Alyssums the little blue heads disappeared.  So I looked more closely and realized he wasn’t actually “smelling “ the flowers.  He was very subtly LICKING them.  And biting the heads off of every second one.

 

Overall I would call the visit a success.  And if it were a Winnie the Pooh story it would be entitled, “The Trip to Grandma’s in which Toby learned to Bite Flowers Instead of Children.”  

The Midnight Shampoo Crisis

Last night as we were about to fall asleep Rob BOUNCED out of bed because he’d remembered that he’d forgotten to pack his shampoo.  He’s going on a 3-day class trip with Grade 8 students.  Half of which will be boys. 

I COULD have rolled back over and gone back to sleep, but I was a concerned wife so I sat up and watched to make sure he successfully found shampoo and returned to bed in one piece.

It was quick.  TOO quick.

When I asked him how he, who usually just uses MY shampoo, managed to find shampoo that quickly without even turning on the lights, he told me that he’d just grabbed Toby’s shampoo.

That being Toby’s bright fluorescent yellow Johnson’s NO TEARS, NO TANGLES “Buddies” shampoo with the giant smiling bathtub on the front.

Once again, I was faced with the option to go BACK to sleep, but I fought through the fatigue in attempts to salvage my husband’s reputation.  Sitting up even FURTHER in bed I suggested that maybe a class trip with GRADE 8 BOYS and other MALE STAFF was NOT the best place to take the “Buddies” No tears No Tangles shampoo.  In the fluorescent yellow bottle with the smiling bathtub on the front.

It was dark in the room but I could see the frustrated look of confusion on his face.

Seriously?  Have you not MET grade 8 boys?  Just because you’re the TEACHER does NOT make you immune to being laughed at behind your back.

Rob doesn’t take kindly to my shampoo suggestions - -and I GUESS he has a right not to.

It all stems from the LAST time I made a suggestion about his shampoo use.  About 2 years ago - -when I got tired of him using my expensive shampoo and decided to buy him some of his own.  His only stipulation was that it was “a big bottle” and it was “cheap”.  I looked hard for the cheapest, biggest bottle I could find and I hit a Superstore Jackpot - - 1 litres for $1.75.  That’s right a full LITRE of shampoo for $1.75.  And it even had a picture of a man riding a horse on the front. 

Manly.  Cheap.  Big Bottle.  PERFECT.

Until I got it home and Rob read the bottle and realized it was actually horse shampoo.

I don’t know what he ended up taking with him on his class trip. Could have been the baby stuff.  Could have been the horse stuff.  Could have been my good expensive stuff.  I just hope someday before I have a household of husbands and adolescent boys someone invents them their own shampoo.

So long, childhood. Its been nice knowing you.

I don’t know how it happened.  To ME of all people? 

A few days ago I was in University, drinking obscene amounts of alcohol and stealing broken plastic chairs with my friends and a few days before that I was begging to go out on a school night with my highschool boyfriend and a few days before that I was bawling in my dads arms because I hadn’t made the Grade 9 basketball team and a few days before that I was homesick at a sleepover down the street….

Sometime, somehow, faster than I could believe it, I evolved into a mother, a doctor and a wife.   But up until yesterday I still FELT like a kid.  Suddenly, today - -everything changed.

This week, Toby and Rob are leaving for a few days I am faced with something I haven’t had in ages: solitude.

I will miss them immensely.  All day today I keep giving Toby extra kisses and taking longer smells of his beautiful blond hair while our usual Sunday husband and wife natterings are laced with humour and affection.  But at the same time, growing inside of me has been a little flicker of anticipation…I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but suddenly out of the blue the thick molten lava of excitement bubbled up from the depths of my brain and out my mouth before I could stop it,

“Tomorrow, when I get home and there’s no one here....I’m going… to… GARDEN!!!!”

That’s right, folks.  It has been a long 31 year childhood.  I’ve enjoyed it and I’m sad to see it go.  But when I’m given a night completely devoid of responsibility or discretion and I choose to spend it WEEDING the GARDEN, the stamp of adulthood has been sealed.

A special friendship

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you are the world.” - Heather Cortez

There is nothing more fitting than this quotation to describe the relationship between Toby and my father.

In all his 82 years of life, I have never seen my dad so taken by any other person as he is by Toby. Initially, he was disappointed not to have had a 7th granddaughter, but it was only a matter of hours before his first grandson won him over.

No matter how cranky either one of them is acting, if the other one enters the room it’s all smiles. We call this Toby’s Grandpa-smile because it is only ever this big when he’s smiling to Grandpa. It’s a huge you-can-see-all-6-teeth-a-twinkle-in-the-eyes-and-perhaps-some-dimples-to-boot smile. And its reciprocal- - plus or minus a few teeth, of course.

Today, when I was trying to leave my parents house (after much bemoaning on the part of both my father AND Toby) Toby was upstairs throwing a royal-I’m-overtired-and-I-Don’t-want-to-do-anything-you-say –hissy fit. My mom and I were consoling/luring him downstairs with the help of his beloved Bear, when I said, “Toby- -can you take Bear downstairs to Grandpa?” Right away he stopped crying and set to work at going downstairs while holding his bear so he could give it to Grandpa. When we got halfway down I saw that my dad, having listening from the kitchen, had also set to work to get his wobbly self as quickly as possible to the front hall so he could be waiting for Toby (and Bear) at the bottom of the stairs. (Anyone who has seen my dad walk knows this is no small feat…)

But the GREAT thing about Grandpa’s wobbly-hobbly walk is that it comes with a CANE. Toby LOVES the cane. He likes to bang it on the floor, hit people in the head with it, play tug of war and knock things over with it. So he was very excited to find it lying on the floor in Grandpa’s room yesterday morning. Part of Toby’s morning ritual at my parents house is to “check on Grandpa sleeping” which he does, very quietly, about 10 times a morning as he impatiently waits for him to get up. But yesterday morning he very quietly (I can’t believe my child does ANYTHING quietly but this story comes from my mother) walked over to Grandpa’s cane and, resisting the urge to bang, crash or whack something with it, took it over to the bed and tried to hand it to my sleeping father. The cane is pretty boring without his favourite person attached to it.

I think the most touching moment of the visit was last night…After a busy day in the Big City, Toby went down easily at bedtime but lay in his crib happily talking to himself before he fell asleep. Dad was downstairs watching the VERY IMPORTANT hockey game (with only a few reminders from my mother coaching him along…). After about 15 minutes my dad called my mom over,

“Lynda! Turn off the volume to the game- - I want to hear the baby!”

And my dad sat there for 2 hours, watching the game on mute and smiling as he listened to his grandson chatting away in his crib over the baby monitor.

I don’t know what my exact opinion is on reincarnation - -but when you see these two together there’s no doubt in my mind that their souls are long lost friends.

Fly by kisses

Warning : This blog entry may very well cause me to be disowned by BOTH of the men in my life….but I couldn’t resist…

 

Love hurts.  Toby has shown this to us in MANY ways over his first 14 months of life, but none so blatantly as he has been doing lately with his kisses.

 

I don’t know if you remember from my previous post, but the poor little guy has been having some problems lately discerning kisses from bites.  In his head, in fact, I think really MEANINGFUL kisses ARE bites- -you just love someone SO MUCH that you end the opened mouth face press with a CHOMP for good measure.

 

Recently, though, Toby has gotten more and more creative with his kisses.  Why SHOULD they just be on the cheek?  We’ve got lots more readily accessible body parts that are easier for his 1 foot frame to hit during his fly by love-attacks…

 

It was all fun and games though until a few days ago when our little guy took it a little too far…

 

I didn’t know who to comfort first- -it all happened so fast…Rob was sitting on a stool reading the newspaper and I was at my computer. Toby was walking by the stool and chomped down between Rob’s legs in an honest-to-goodness-hard-core-skin-piercing-penis-kiss.  I don’t have a penis.  But by the reaction Rob gave I think it is quite possibly the WORST place to receive a skin-breaking-love-bite….In the blink of an eye the stool,  the newspaper, Rob’s shorts and our son fell to the floor with a CRASH and a YELP.  Toby immediately BURST into uncontrollable sobbing as Rob bounced around the kitchen grabbing his penis in despair.

I did what any mother would do in this situation – picked up my son and started to cry.  Useful, hormones, useful.

I am happy to recount that The Penis is OK.  (I capitalized it – small pittance for being bitten and then blogged about…)  Toby is also OK, although he was very confused and I think his feelings were hurt.  Rob, being the bigger man and a great daddy, put his genital woes aside to comfort Toby and explain to him that we don’t like biting.  We left it at that.  One day he’ll get it.  …And I thought the breastfeeding stories would embarrass him…

The Dry Bath

Tonight we had an exciting evening-  -the power went out.  Not because of any inclement weather.  It’s a BEAUTIFUL night out.  And not even because of construction.  Nope - -we live in the middle of nowhere, so sometimes, for no reason, our power goes out.

In a flash of a second EVERY plan I had for the evening went out the window- - dinner, bath time, watching TV, reading my email, calling some friends (damn portable phones)  I raced to the window to see what the other neighbors were doing.  All two of them were doing…well…nothing, really.  Another point about living in the middle of nowhere- - people are pretty chill about life. I EXPECTED people to be running around the streets shaking their non-defrosted dinner meats at the hydro poles in fits of rage.  But no - -none of that.  Just the usual silence and the odd bird chirp.  I would just have to deal with this.

SO bedtime was interesting.  Toby is a great sleeper but only – ONLY – because we made him into one with countless nights of crying (on mommy’s part) followed by more countless night of crying-it-out (on Toby’s part) followed by his illness, followed by this sentence all over again.  So we tend not to MESS with bedtime routine.

Tonight this took some serious creativity on our part.  Bath time was particularly interesting.  The boy has had a bath every day before bed for the past year.  (Do we get extra parenting points for this or just the smug knowledge that we have an uber-clean child?) But because we live on a well (because we live in the middle of nowhere) we can’t run water while the power is out.  So we had a “dry bath”.  We weren’t sure how it would go over but Toby didn’t really seem to notice.

We all took our usual positions –Rob waited with the towel while I sat on a stool in our tub and we played with bath toys and I used a damp cloth and cleaned him a little bit and we banged on the taps and played with our penis - -the usual bath time stuff.

Then it was bedtime without the FAN for white noise or the NIGHTLIGHT for reassurance.

He did quite well until I put him in his crib and he started to cry.  That’s right, little guy, SOMETHING is not right but we’re not just sure what it is….

He’s off to sleep now and I’m putting my creative powers to the test, trying to make dinner without the microwave or running water. Thank goodness for laptop batteries….

ADDENDUM - -the power is back on.  I have learned something from tonight : If you think your middle-of-no-where-I-can't-use-the-water-to-water-the-plants-like-my-husband-asked-me-to-because-of-the-power-outage excuse is a good one -- its not.  Apparently you can use the lake water.  Also, if your miraculous BBQ has solved your dinner fiasco, just make sure the tank is full of gas before you count your chickens or all you'll be counting are half cooked sausages.

Damn You, Billy

I have become somewhat of an exercise video workout addict. Not that I DO them, just that I buy and hoard them….I know- - its weird. I think there’s something appealing about perfectly looking people promising you similar results while smiling and not producing a drop of sweat. And all in 20 minutes! Or just 5 cycles of 3 minutes! Or something that sounds cheerful and EASY…. And you don’t even have to leave your own home. AND you can PAUSE it whenever you like and NO ONE will know.

The problem is, that I just haven’t found one that I really LIKE yet. Which SHOULD discourage me from buying more but it just makes the pursuit that much more enthralling.

Today when I was out I bought FOUR new ones. FOUR. I don’t even buy four pairs of new underwear at a time, but for some reason today I thought I’d hit a jackpot at the discount video store.

So this afternoon I tried out the first one.

BILLY’S BOOT CAMP : COMBAT MISSION 2 -- MAXIMUM POWER

Everyone is dressed in army gear and the “music” is them COUNTING to 8 over and over and over again at what I soon discovered to be a fairly QUICK pace….hardcore.

And yet -- I didn’t think it did much for me. I broke a sweat and my arms burned a bit from repeatedly torturing my deltoids, but I wasn’t OVERLY impressed….until about 3 hours later when I tried to lift up a small margarine container of water to dump over Toby’s head in the bath. By the time I got it over Toby’s head my entire arm was CONVULSING in objection. The convulsions resurfaced as I lifted his TOOTHBRUSH (with toothpaste on it) up to my eye level to brush his teeth.

It appears perhaps I HAVE found COMBAT MISSION 2 to be a bit of a challenge…In fact I’m a little scared to see what tomorrow holds. And, as I dread the inevitable end of this post because of the 15cm arm raise closing my laptop will require, I have a sinking suspicion that Billy and his Maximum Power BOOT CAMP will soon be back on the shelf with the other videos….